Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing system, a control apparatus, an image processing apparatus, and methods of controlling these.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a remote maintenance service by voice, moving image communication, and remote operation in image processing apparatuses such as multifunction peripherals (MFP) has been proposed. In a remote maintenance service, when an error occurs in the image processing apparatus, it becomes possible to solve the error by an operator of a call-center directly conveying an error solving approach to a user by voice and moving image communication or by the operator of the call-center performing a remote operation of the image processing apparatus. By this, it is possible to shorten the time necessary for solving an error without it being necessary for a worker to go to a site for maintenance.
A remote maintenance system for providing a remote maintenance service as described above generally can be realized by using a VNC (Virtual Network Computing) server function which is one of server functions supported by image processing apparatuses. Specifically, by a terminal apparatus (information terminal) such as a PC of a call-center making a connection (a VNC connection) to a VNC server operating on an image processing apparatus of a customer, an operation screen of the image processing apparatus can be displayed on the terminal apparatus. The operator of the call-center is able to perform remote maintenance of the image processing apparatus by directly operating the operation screen of the image processing apparatus on the terminal apparatus to perform a remote operation of the image processing apparatus.
There are cases when the image processing apparatus is caused to restart by an instruction or remote operation from the call-center in the remote maintenance service. For example, a restart of the image processing apparatus is performed in a case where a change of a setting that becomes active after the restart is performed or in a case where a glitch occurs in the apparatus. At a time of a restart of the image processing apparatus, a session between the image processing apparatus and the terminal apparatus is disconnected. After a restart of the image processing apparatus, a reconnection between the image processing apparatus and the terminal apparatus becomes necessary in order to continue the remote maintenance for a confirmation of a post-change setting and the like. In Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2015-037259, a technique in which, at a time of a restart of the image processing apparatus, a reconnection with a terminal apparatus is automatically performed based on information recorded prior to the restart is proposed.
Here, the image processing apparatus, which receives provision of the remote maintenance service, may be directly connected to a print control apparatus by a network cable, a dedicated cable or the like, and access to a network such as LAN may be possible only via the print control apparatus. In such a case, when a packet is received from the network side, the print control apparatus transfers the packet to the image processing apparatus by a packet transfer function such as NAT (Network Address Translation) or NAPT (Network Address Port Translation). Note that the print control apparatus is an apparatus for performing image processing by cooperating with the image processing apparatus.
In such a configuration, remote maintenance of both of the print control apparatus and the image processing apparatus becomes possible by the following processing, for example. In a case where a connection request to a VNC server of the image processing apparatus is received from the terminal apparatus of the network side, the print control apparatus transfers the connection request to the image processing apparatus. When the image processing apparatus, having received the connection request, transfers the connection request to (the VNC server of) the print control apparatus, remote maintenance of the print control apparatus from the terminal apparatus via the image processing apparatus becomes possible. Additionally, remote maintenance of the image processing apparatus from the terminal apparatus becomes possible by the print control apparatus transmitting a connection request, which is different from the received connection request, to the image processing apparatus to establish a VNC connection with the image processing apparatus.
In a configuration in which a print control apparatus is connected to the image processing apparatus as described above, the VNC connection between the terminal apparatus of the call-center and the image processing apparatus is disconnected when a restart of the print control apparatus is performed while remote maintenance of the print control apparatus is being performed. This is because packet transfer by the print control apparatus between the terminal apparatus and the image processing apparatus ceases to be performed due to the restart of the print control apparatus. In such a case, it is necessary that the image processing apparatus reconnects to the terminal apparatus after the restart of the print control apparatus. However, if an activation state of the print control apparatus is not known, the user of the image processing apparatus cannot know when to perform the operation for instructing the reconnection to the terminal apparatus, and because of this, a wasted waiting time can occur. Also, a wasted waiting time similarly can occur for the operator of the call-center.